


All in Good Time

by Ultra



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Confusion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Home, Love, Memories, Missing Scene, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Dr. Sam Beckett sometimes struggles with his constant leaping through time, and Al has a hard time watching his friend go through so much, but it is Sam's wife, Donna, who suffers more, waiting in hope for a happily ever after that must surely someday come to pass.





	All in Good Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/gifts).



> I haven't written much for this fandom before, but I love the show and hope I have done justice to the prompts/requests of Karios.

The look of shock that came over Sam’s face, Al had never seen anything like it before. After so many leaps through time, so many amazing discoveries that came with each one, Al never thought anything could really surprise his good buddy so much anymore, but something clearly had.

“Sam?”

“I don’t... Al, I know her,” he stammered, shaking his head, eyes fixed on a spot across the street still.

“Know who?” asked the hologram, trying to see.

It took him a minute to pick out the right girl on the opposite sidewalk, but once his eyes found her, he knew they were in trouble. Glancing at Sam, Al saw the pained expression his friend wore, caught halfway between a smile and a grimace.

“Donna,” he breathed, finally tearing his eyes away and looking at Al again as the light dawned in his mind. “She’s... she’s my wife.”

Al nodded. He had no words he could possibly say, nothing that would bring Sam any comfort in a moment like this. It was easier on him not to know about his marriage. Sam and Donna both agreed it had to be that way. When the Swiss-cheesing effect of the leap took away Sam’s most basic memories, including those of his wife, Al had to let the fact lie and never mention it. Most of the time, it was fine. Of course, today had to be different.

“You never told me!” said Sam, accusatory in his tone and looks. “Al, how could you...? How could I ever...?”

“Sam, come on, this isn’t your fault,” Al insisted, wishing he could reach out to his friend, hating the fact that he never could. “It’s the way it has to be.”

“But I remembered once,” Sam realised too suddenly, and it seemed to hit him like a literal kick to the head. “I... I went home.”

“Yeah.” Al nodded. “You did. Look, Sam, we gotta get off the street before people think you’re a loon that likes to argue with himself.”

“No,” Sam insisted, pressing forward. “No, that was Donna. I have to follow her, talk to her.”

“Sam, she won’t know you here. Even if you looked like you, she wouldn’t!” Al yelled across the street, even as Sam took off running. “Gooshie!” he called this time. “Centre me on Sam!”

In a second, the hologram popped up alongside his friend just as he was about to step into the store where a young Donna was gathering up groceries.

“Sam, this is a bad idea. A very, very bad idea!”

“Al, she’s my wife!”

“Not here she’s not, and if you change things with her, she might never be. You want to take that chance?”

He gave it serious consideration. Al could see it all over Sam’s face, the pain and confusion, the conflicted feelings that were almost impossible to resolve. He really wished he could help, make it better somehow, but it just wasn’t possible.

Once was enough when it came to Sam recalling his wife mid-leap. At least then he had been in the imaging chamber, had a chance to see Donna, hold her, tell her he loved her. Al also recalled that Sam chose to leap again, to get lost in time and space, all-but alone, just to save his life. It made it worse, before he ever got to the part where he knew Donna could see this and every other leap that Sam took too. She knew her husband’s pain as well as anyone and was even more powerless to help.

A squeal of tyres made Sam and Al both spin around, just in time to see a car swerve out of control at the intersection, eventually crashing headlong into a fire hydrant with an almighty bang. People screamed and panicked, some folks ran towards the incident to help, but backed up again when they saw flames lick up from the back of the crashed car, even as the people within tried in vain to get free.

“Damn it!” Sam exclaimed, looking back at the young Donna for all of a second before rushing towards the crashed car.

Al honestly didn’t know whether to be relieved to have Sam’s attention off of the girl or worried that he just ran into another life-or-death situation. Only time would tell if he had made the right move.

* * *

Sam paused on his walk down Main Street, even as Al continued on. The hologram of his friend turned back to look, frowning when he realised his buddy was lagging behind.

“Sam, what are you doing?” he asked frustratedly. “You gotta get that evidence to the police before it’s too late, otherwise the guy is going to go to jail and that poor little girl will be taken away by her shrew of an aunt and-, what is that?”

Al stopped his enthusiastic speech-making when he realised there was an envelope in Sam’s hand that had not been there before. It wasn’t the evidence for the cops, that was in the folder under Sam’s arm. Rushing back over, Al peered at the envelope, but couldn’t make out the writing.

“I wrote a letter... for Donna,” Sam confessed, glancing up to meet Al’s eyes. “I know what you said about interfering with the past, so I left well alone. You’re right, I could affect the future and that could be dangerous, but there’s nothing to stop me writing to her in the present, right?”

Al’s mouth opened and closed twice with no sound coming out before finally he nodded his head and agreed.

“Right,” he said, knowing it was true, as he watched Sam open up the mail box and drop the letter inside.

They did this before. Al couldn’t be sure if Sam remembered all the details since the Swiss-cheesing of his brain was fickle at best, but this was a trick they employed some time ago, when Al had been the one leaped into a situation and Sam was the hologram, physically back home in present day New Mexico. Send a letter in the past to a lawyer or some such, marked for delivery on a set date in the present, and it technically arrived simultaneously.

A part of Al wanted to ask what Sam had written in that letter to Donna, but it was none of his business. Besides, there was a good chance Donna herself would tell him later in any case. She had to talk to someone, and Al was one of only a handful that understood her strange and painful situation.

“I just... I need her to know that I love her. Even when my brain forgets, my heart never could,” said Sam, staring at the mailbox a moment before letting it close. “Okay,” he said, seemingly shaking off his own personal feelings to deal with the case at hand. “Time to finish this up,” he declared, striding purposefully forward towards the police station again.

Al stood still watching him go then glanced at the hand-link. There was a 94.8% chance that handing in the evidence would be all it took, and Sam would leap out of this mission. No doubt wherever and whenever he landed next, he would have forgotten all about Donna all over again and Al would not be allowed to tell him a thing about her.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” he said to himself, exiting the imaging chamber.

* * *

“He remembered me,” said Donna, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t believe it.”

“It was seeing you back there, in 1975,” Al explained. “It all just came flooding back.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, she could see it in his eyes, and yet Donna was glad for his silence. It was hard enough to read the letter Sam had sent to her from the past without Al adding to her pain. They both meant well, she knew that, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear.

“I love him so much, Al,” she said softly, fingers running across the yellowed page of her husband’s words, handwriting she hadn’t seen in too long. “Sometimes I wish...”

“I’m sorry, Donna.”

The words came from Al and yet they were also written on the page in her hand. It made her smile, despite her tears. It helped her find a little peace in the tumult of feelings she was wrestling with right now.

“He does what he has to do,” she said of Sam, taking a deep breath as she faced Al once more. “Always. Including when he made that leap to save your life. You’ve saved his so many times.”

Al shook his head sadly.

“What else can I do?” he asked hopelessly. “I’m the only connection he can use, I do what I can. Sam is your husband, but he’s also my best friend, as close to a brother as I’ve ever had. Believe me, if I could do more, if I could have him come back here to stay, I would.”

“I know.” Donna smiled bravely. “I just wish it were easier. You know they call you the Observer on this project, but I do more observing than anyone. When you’re in the imaging chamber, helping Sam on his next leap, I watch. Not every time but quite often. I’ve seen Sam save lives, literally and otherwise. I’ve watched as he became a husband, a father, even a wife and a mother, all without ever knowing I exist.

“I can’t deny that I get jealous sometimes, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t, but I understand. I feel so much for those people that Sam is sent to help, so much compassion for their situations, and if Sam can help, I want him to do it, whatever it takes, not just to give him the chance to come back to me, but to do what he was made for, to help.

“You know what this letter says? At least half of it is assurances of his love for me, but the other half... he begs my forgiveness. He prays that I understand and I wish, oh how I wish I could tell him that I do. I know it would be impossible for him to do his job if he knew I existed but... but selfishly, I want him to know, all of the time, that I love him, that I do forgive him, that I can understand.

“Oh, Al, do you think I’ll ever get the chance to have my husband in my life again?”

She looked back at him and saw tears welling Al’s eyes too. It was almost comforting to know she was not alone in missing Sam at least. Though his best friend got to see him, talk to him, there were large parts of their relationship missing too.

“I have to believe it,” he said hoarsely. “We both have to believe, Donna,” he continued, taking her hand and holding it tight, “because if I know Sam, and you know that I do, if he can possibly find his way home to you, he will.”

Donna nodded her head, sending tears spilling down her cheeks. She did believe. It was all she could do for now.

* * *

Tempus fugit. Time flies. It was a well-known phrase regarded by most to be true, and yet for Donna Beckett, nee Eleese, it never seemed accurate. Watching her husband leap around in time, while she moved forward alone, it seemed that every day was so long, every week and month and year just crawled by, until finally, finally the miracle happened.

The last week had not gone by so quickly. It had been long and wonderful and spent well as husband and wife reconnected in all possible ways. Tonight, was the first they wouldn’t spend alone together since Sam’s return, but that was okay, because even Donna could not deny she had been looking forward to this event too.

“You really can’t stop smiling, can you?” said Sam, standing at her side on the doorstep, her hand clasped tightly in his own.

“No, I really can’t,” she admitted, leaning in to kiss his lips, just as the front door opened.

“Get a room!” said Al, grinning as Sam and Donna parted from their kiss.

“Believe me, we have one and we’ve spent a lot of time in it these past seven days,” said Sam with a look.

“You dog!” his friend joked, ushering the two of them inside. “I almost feel bad for inviting you over if there are other places you’d rather be,” he said with a look.

“Are you kidding? We want to be here.”

“Yes, we do,” Donna agreed. “Hello, Beth,” she said, greeting Al’s wife with a smile and a hug.

“You remember my wife, Sam?” said Al, with a significant look.

“Yes, I do,” he said, nodding slowly.

“I remember you too,” she assured him, as they embraced. “Welcome home.”

“It’s certainly wonderful to be here.”

“You can’t be any happier about it than I am,” said Donna, returning to her husband’s side within a second, unable to keep from touching him.

There was a part of her that was still so afraid that he was about to go away again at any moment, that she might wake to find this was all a dream, as it had been a great many times before. No, this time it was real. As last, Sam had found his way back to her. The past had been hard but necessary, the present was so full of love and happiness, and now, the future looked awfully bright.


End file.
